Back to the Future (1985)

This is the first of a three part series about a California high school student, Marty McFly (portrayed brilliantly by Michael J. Fox).

Marty’s life (with his parents and siblings) is dull and frustrating. His music career is going nowhere. He takes solace in hanging out with his good friend, crackpot scientist/inventor Emmet Brown (Christopher Lloyd).

Late one night Marty gets a call from Doc to meet him at the mall. Marty agrees. At the mall he sees that Doc has invented a workable time machine from a DeLorean automobile.

Doc explained that the time mechanism is powered by a flux capacitor which runs on plutonium (that he received from Libyan Nationalists to construct an atomic bomb).

Instead, he gave them a contraption filled with used pinball parts and plans on escaping to the past before they find out.

Doc and Marty are documenting his journey to the past, when the Libyans show up. Doc is shot and Marty must flee in the Delorean. During the mad chase scene, Marty gets the car up to 88 miles per hour and the flux capacitor kicks in, sending him back to 1955.

While there, Marty realizes that the rest of the plutonium is at the mall in 1985. And he has no way to get home. So he turns to the only one that can help him, a much younger Doc Brown.

Marty has to convince the 1955 Doc that he is from the future. Then, they have to figure out a way to make the flux capacitor work without plutonium, so Marty can get back.

The plot thickens when Marty encounters his parents (then high school students). He accidentally interferes with their meeting. So now he must get them together or he will endanger his very existence. The comedy of errors that ensue is truly remarkable.

Back to the Future is one of my favorite movies. The time travel sequences are futuristic yet believable. The story is sci-fi and at the same time very funny. The entire cast is superb and you will want to watch it more than once.